Dakota Beacon

Monday, February 25, 2013

Edmund Burke (1727-1797), Irish born member of the British Parliament, in his speech to the House of Commons of March 22, 1775 “on moving his resolutions for conciliation with the colonies”, very well described the risks inherent in extensive political party machinery.

“Next, we know that parties must never exist in a free country. We know, too, that the emulations of such parties – their contradictions, their reciprocal necessities, their hopes, and their fears – must send them all in their turns to him that holds the balance of the State. The Parties are the gamesters; but Government keeps the table, and is sure to be the winner in the end. When this game is played, I really think it is more to be feared that the people will be exhausted, than the government will not be supplied; whereas, whatever is got by acts of absolute power ill obeyed, because odious, or by contracts ill kept, because constrained, will be narrow, feeble, uncertain, and precarious.”

At no time have Burke’s words been more firmly proven than by the present state of debt in the United States of America. Politicians seeking optimum power to direct both present and future tax revenues have exhausted the wealth of taxpayers (the private producing economy) in order to supply an insatiable federal government bureaucracy (the public non-producing economy). Such irresponsible spending, 40% of which is currently borrowed from future generations, has creating an unprecedented risk of either willful “sovereign default” (which penalizes lenders and destroys a country’s ability to subsequently borrow) or precipitous hyper-inflation (which penalizes holders of the currency by greatly reducing its market value) caused by “growth in the money supply” (government printing of money).

Whether revenues are re-distributed to Republican Party constituents or to Democrat Party constituents, the economic result is the same. Re-election rules over responsibility and the larger the majority of one party over another, the greater the degree of irresponsibility. Voters are to blame, due to their casual if not absent interest in the actions of the “gamesters”. Sounds a little like “gangsters”, doesn’t it?